EB-5 fees double on 30 November, and the rule names the 240-day goal they are priced against

Last updated 2026-10-05 · General information, not legal advice

DHS published the final EB-5 fee rule on 30 September 2026, and it takes effect on 30 November. Postmark decides which schedule you pay: a petition posted on or after 30 November must carry the new amount. On the investor side the I-526 goes from $3,675 to $7,615, an initial I-526E from $3,675 to $7,850, and the I-829 from $3,750 to $5,000. The rule also explains what the money is priced against. DHS states that it set these fees at a level sufficient to reach the adjudication goals Congress wrote into the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 — an average of 240 days for an I-526E, 120 days where the investment sits in a targeted employment area, and 240 days for an I-829. USCIS currently publishes an 80% line of 35 months for the I-526E.

The new schedule

This is the final version of the proposal DHS floated on 23 October 2025 (91 FR 61940). The amounts are in the regulatory text the rule writes into 8 C.F.R. § 106.2(d).

A $75 EB-5 Technology Fee is already inside the I-526 and initial I-526E amounts above, so you do not send it separately. The Integrity Fund fee is separate. Section 106.2(d)(1) requires anyone filing a petition for classification under INA § 203(b)(5)(E) to submit $1,100 on top of every other fee for that petition. An initial I-526E posted on 1 December therefore costs $8,950 in filing fees. The same petition posted today costs $4,675.

On the regional center side: an I-526E amendment is $7,775, an I-956 amendment $9,835, the I-956F $42,675, the I-956G $2,165, the I-956H $65 and the I-956K $2,165. The annual fee a designated regional center pays each 1 October rises from $10,000 to $11,000, and from $20,000 to $22,000 for a centre that had more than 20 total investors on the last day of the preceding fiscal year. Late payment carries a graduated penalty: 10 percent for payment between 1 and 30 November, 20 percent between 1 and 30 December, and termination of the designation if the fee and penalty are still unpaid after 30 December.

Across the programme DHS projects about 16,600 EB-5 filings a year and a weighted average increase of 70.7 percent, or roughly $2,945.90 per filing.

Why the "now" column is not the 2024 schedule

The January 2024 fee rule set EB-5 fees higher than the figures above. The District of Colorado stayed several of them in Moody v. Noem, 2025 WL 3157554, and the preamble to the new rule states that the amounts USCIS collects today are the ones that applied before that rule. USCIS went back on 12 November 2025 to accepting the amounts that applied until 31 March 2024, honouring the higher amounts only for filings postmarked before 26 November 2025 (the USCIS alert). A footnote in the new rule says plainly that the EB-5 numbers printed in 8 C.F.R. § 106.2 today are not the amounts USCIS collects. From 30 November the codified amounts and the amounts collected match again.

The 240-day goal Congress wrote

Section 106(b) of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-103, div. BB, set out at 8 U.S.C. § 1153 note) directs DHS to set EB-5 fees at a level sufficient to recover the cost of adjudicating these filings, including the cost of attaining the goal of completing them, on average, no later than:

• 180 days for a regional center application (I-956) or an application to approve an investment in a new commercial enterprise (I-956F), and 90 days for an I-956F where the enterprise is in a targeted employment area
• 240 days for an investor petition for classification under INA § 203(b)(5)(E), which is the I-526E, and 120 days for such a petition covering an investment in a targeted employment area
• 240 days for a petition to remove conditions under INA § 216A(c), which is the I-829

DHS repeats that list in its own words in the preamble to this rule and says the finalised fees are set to recover costs and attain those goals. The statute is at Public Law 117-103 on govinfo.gov, section 106 at 136 Stat. 1103–1104.

Read those figures against what the agency publishes about itself (2026-10-02 snapshot, USCIS publication date 17 September 2026; every row is on the processing-times page):

One clarification about that middle row. Section 106(b) attaches its 240- and 120-day goals to a petition for classification under INA § 203(b)(5)(E), the regional center program. A standalone I-526 is filed under the surrounding subparagraphs, and Congress set no number for it. A standalone investor still argues delay the ordinary way; the statutory benchmark described here is not available to that petition on its face.

What this means for a delay case

A petition already on file is untouched. The new amounts attach by postmark. If yours went out before 30 November your receipt date stands, and an I-526E that has been pending 30 months is still 30 months old on 1 December.

The statutory goal is something you can cite, and few case types have one. A court deciding whether a delay has become unreasonable weighs the six factors from Telecommunications Research and Action Center v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70 (D.C. Cir. 1984). The second of them asks whether Congress has given any indication of the speed it expects from the agency. For an I-485 or an I-130 there is nothing to point at. For an I-526E or an I-829 there is a number in a statute, and as of 30 September 2026 there is also a Federal Register document in which DHS says these fees are priced to reach it.

The limits matter as much as the point, because overstating this argument costs credibility with the court that has to hear it:

• Section 106(b) sets an average and calls it a goal. It describes the agency's aggregate output, not a deadline for your petition. Passing 240 days is not a violation of anything.
• The statute attaches no consequence to missing it. The rule's own footnote cites Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U.S. 149, 159 (2003): where a statute does not specify a consequence for non-compliance with a timing provision, the agency is not deprived of its power to act.
• DHS declined to put the goals in the Code of Federal Regulations. Commenters asked for exactly that. DHS answered that the better practice is to codify requirements rather than goals, targets or objectives, and made no change. The 240 days stay in the statute; they are not a separately enforceable regulatory duty.
• Section 106(e) preserves a suspension power. Nothing in the division limits the Secretary's authority to suspend adjudication of an EB-5 petition while a national security or law enforcement investigation is pending.
• Our own threshold for EB-5 has not moved. It is still 12 months, as set out in the EB-5 guide. The 240-day goal is evidence inside the second TRAC factor, not a date after which a case becomes ripe.

The usual boundary applies. A mandamus suit asks a court to order USCIS to decide; it never asks for approval, and it does not touch the substantive questions an EB-5 petition turns on — lawful source of funds, job creation, project compliance.

The new Form I-527, at $10,330

The rule also creates a form. An investor whose I-526 was filed before the 2022 reforms can amend the petition under INA § 203(b)(5)(M)(ii) to keep eligibility after their regional center is terminated, or their new commercial enterprise or job-creating entity is debarred. That amendment now goes on Form I-527 and costs $10,330.

Commenters argued the $8,000 proposed was already punitive, since the need to amend comes from an agency action rather than anything the investor did. DHS kept the higher figure and declined a fee waiver, noting that it does not usually waive fees for employment-based requests.

One figure in the rule is worth keeping. After the 180-day response window closed on the first batch of eligibility notices USCIS sent out, about 10 percent of the investors who replied said they wanted to amend, measured as of 20 July 2026.

What to do

1. Filing at the old rate? The postmark is the test, not the date on your cheque. A payment written on 28 November and posted on 2 December arrives short (example).
2. Short by any amount produces the same outcome. 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(a)(7)(ii)(D) requires the correct fee, and the same paragraph provides that a rejected filing retains no filing date (full text of 8 C.F.R. § 103.2 at govinfo.gov). Move the receipt date and you move both the day a case inquiry opens to you and the length of wait a court will credit.
3. An approval is not safe either. The same subparagraph provides that if USCIS accepts a filing and later finds the fee was wrong it may reject or deny it, and that an approval already granted may be revoked upon notice.
4. Check the amount on the day you pay, against the USCIS fee schedule at Form G-1055, and add the separate Integrity Fund fee to an I-526E.
5. Already waiting? Find out where you stand. Take your receipt date to your row on the processing-times page. If it is earlier than the case-inquiry date there, file the free case inquiry first and keep what comes back.

One more date from the same rule: the reformed Regional Center Program is currently authorised through 30 September 2027.

If you are not sure whether your wait is long enough to act on, the 60-second check works it out from your receipt date.